for the underdog team, featured in the movie "money ball." jim axelrod spoke with its manager, who broke the mold on thousand be a winning ball club. >> reporter: they are the poorest team in major league baseball. with a roster stocked with rookies and low-paid veterans, the oakland a's were pegged to finish last in their division. >> most people i think predicted that we would lose not only 100, maybe 110. so this has been satisfying. >> reporter: instead, they finished first. if what general manager billy beane has done sounds like a hollywood story, well, it already was. >> the problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. then there's 50 feet of crap. and then there's us. >> reporter: brad pitt played beane in "money ball." it's a david and goliath tale of a gm with a small budget for salaries outthinking everyone else using a statistical formula to find winners among baseball's discards. you have to find undervalued players. >> you essentially have to have players whose performance is better than what we're paying them. >> reporter: beane's calculation